


Now I Will Step Forward to Realize This Wish

by NightFlowerLuv



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, Friendship, Gen, I love Kingdom Hearts as it is for the most part but we're changing a LOT, Mentors, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Indulgent, Self-Insert, VERY gradual friends-to-lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-11-01 22:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17876009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightFlowerLuv/pseuds/NightFlowerLuv
Summary: There are many worlds, but they share the same sky -- one sky, butnotone destiny.Among countless iterations, some small changes make great waves, but sometimes, someone wants to see typhoons. That's why I'm here, supposedly, and I can't guarantee I'll be the entertainment my new "boss" seems to want, but if I've got free reign, well...My ideal power fantasy was always being able to save everyone. Nothing ever works outperfect,but if I can help shoulder some of the pain, then I'll do whatever I can.





	1. Wish Number 1: Sass An Omnipotent Being

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the culmination of essentially an entire life spent in love with Kingdom Hearts. What's old is new and what's lame is fun! No need for drawn out explanations, you know the drill; let's do this.

The sound and feeling of waves hitting my feet roused me slowly. As I sat up and came to consciousness, I squinted my crusty eyes at the setting sun far to my left.

Panic quickly set in at the realization that, holy fuck, I wasn’t in my bed at home, and I scrubbed at my eyes so I could see. Where was I? Why was I here?

It was a beautiful beach, with wind softly blowing and seagulls crying out as the day ended. As I looked around from my current sitting position, I felt anxiety clawing at any sense of peace the setting tried to imbue within me.This wasn’t right! Where was I?!

My hip vibrated, and as I instinctively rushed to answer what must have been a phone call or text, I realized that my outfit was bizarrely different as well.

Anxiety fed me thousands of terrible things that a different outfit could mean, and though I tried to focus on what it, like, actually looked like, tears were already welling up and threatened to spill over.

My hip vibrated again.

It was, in fact, my phone vibrating, and my pockets were actually large enough to fit it, one side of my brain noticed in its usual non-sequitur fashion. Two text notifications appeared on my screen, from someone I didn’t know — or at least couldn’t REMEMBER ever adding to my contacts — named “Master ROB”, with Master being the first name. I swiped to see the messages fully before my phone could fade out, and they said, simply:

“May your heart be your guiding key.”

“Oh, but if you’re totally lost or freaking out, totally call me. That happens sometimes, I can tell you what’s up.”

Suspicious with a capital S, and yet that phrase was a reference and I’d called more suspicious numbers back after missing them, and my curiosity and anxiety over where I was outweighed my paranoia that it might be some creep on the other line, though then again the two could be connected, and —

Ugh, anyway, I made the call.

_“Oh, hey, you did call!”_

“Um, yeah…?” I didn’t have much time to speak before he cut me off.

_“Okay, I don’t have a lot of time — well, that’s not really true, it’s not like I’m even really here or anything, but anyway, hi! I’m the one who dropped you off there. Before you ask,me and some other friends of mine do this all the time and it’s totally safe! Have you looked around yet?”_

“Huh?”

My anxiety apparently came through in my voice.

_“Oh, shoot, you’re freaking out. Okay, um, let’s see… I was going to be subtle and cool and stuff, but it might just be better to tell you. You’re currently displaced from your world by both time and space, and on another world so disparate from your own that it’s part of a video game series where you come from. What do you guys call it over there… Self Insert?”_

My anxiety dipped and flipped and swelled into a whole new form. “Wait, ‘heart be your guiding key’ plus video game plus self insert means that this beach is—”

_“A world called the Destiny Islands, that’s right! You learn fast.”_

_“…_ And you’re _definitely_ the Master of Masters, because your voice is really distinctive, so, uh… no offense, but why should I trust you at all?”

_“Oof, that’s cold, little lady! C’mooon, can’t a guy displaced from time and space with inordinate amounts of power find some entertainment in his vast existence?”_

“That’s about the most selfish way of looking at your position I’ve ever heard, but sure, I guess…”

_“Man, you don’t hold back, do you? I’m glad! Makes me feel confident in my choice here.”_

What? What kind of _response_ was that? I mean, I guess it was nice to know that passive aggression and snark weren’t going to get me totally killed, since they were easy defense mechanisms in situations like this, in which case…

“Oh yeah?” I found myself raising an eyebrow, fighting desperately against the knot in my gut. “So what exactly is your _angle_ here, mister Book of Prophecies? You need some help dragging yourself out of whatever shitty place you vanished to or something?”

_“Oh, nah, that’s already something I know will happen plenty of times across plenty of timelines. Genuinely, I’m kinda getting bored of watching the same thing happen over and over across spacetime.”_

“Maybe you should have thought of that before partaking in the great practice of fatalism and prophecy,” I responded in a deadpan. At least most of my anxiety was fading out, even if it was probably not the best idea to snark so much at the essentially-god who’d brought me here and could probably just as easily un-bring me here or fuck with me in all kinds of other ways. “Why should I help you entertain yourself, of all things?”

 _“Because I know you want to, of course!”_ He replied, and I twitched. _“If anyone can totally shake things up, it’s someone like you who doesn’t hold back and wants to help people no matter what! Why do you think Sora gets so much mileage out of his attitude?”_

Oh, crap, _Sora,_ that’s right, holy shit — “I don’t know if he’s the best example to use, just, y’know, given my current understanding of what the normal events that happen in this universe are,” I said, my gut starting to turn cold again. “The fact that this is all any kind of game to you really isn’t making me want to go along with your stupid whims.”

 _“No, no, you aren’t getting it!”_ he replied, _“Man, this is way harder than my colleagues make it out to be… Look, I get why you’re mad at me, okay? Totally didn’t look after my kids the way I should’ve — wound up causing all the problems I wanted to solve. If it makes you feel any better, about a hundred different iterations of Sora and a few other people have beaten that into my head pretty solidly over the millennia.”_

His tone was exasperated, but not overly so — I wasn’t great at reading emotions through just voice, but the exasperation didn’t seem to be directed just at me, but at himself too. I could only guess from my own experiences with that kind of feeling, of course, but I’d had those experiences more times than you’d think, so if he was trying to get me to feel for him, it was working.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

_“That’s_ **_why_ ** _I called you here, like I said. You wanna beat some sense into me too, yeah? Here’s your chance!”_

“… you may have my attention,” I admitted, with great effort, “but it sounds like there’s a catch here, because I don’t know where the heck you’ve run off to in this universe, or if it even _is_ this universe, because I think it might not be.”

 _“Well, I can’t give you_ ** _all_** _the answers,”_ he replied, almost sounding like he was rolling his eyes at me. _“You’ve thought about this world long enough that I trust you to come up with something epic, though! Do your thing, work your magic, you don’t need to worry about any interference from me in the meantime.”_

“I hadn’t expected any,” I shot back, deadpan back in place. “So, alright, the deal here is that I provide you with cheap laughs —”

 _“While getting to live life as part of your favorite thing ever,”_ he cut in, just shy of smug, and I felt myself twitch again.

“— right, anyway, so I entertain you in a world that can very easily cause me intense emotional and bodily harm, with an end goal I barely understand. Sure, let’s pretend I’m desperate enough to meddle in the affairs of this universe to go along with that for a second —” which I _wasn’t_ , okay, I _swear to the great god Arceus I wasn’t —_ “what happens if I meet a grisly end?” I titled my head just a bit, feeling a bit verbose. “You gonna be the one to inform my next of kin, or does my transferral to this universe suddenly mean _my_ parents don’t matter?”

The Master laughed harder than I was entirely comfortable with at my snark, especially given I wasn’t normally that good at delivering those kinds of lines on the fly like that. _“Man, I knew this was a great idea. Here’s the thing about that: it totally depends. Is your will strong enough to survive the dark end you might meet on your path? That’s up to you, after all — if not, or you wind up dead some other way —”_ oh that was _far_ too casual — _“then you wake up in your world thinking this was all some weird dream, no strings attached. I never liked attached strings, personally.”_

“… Do you have _any_ idea how little sense you make sometimes?” I couldn’t help but say, my head shaking even though he (hopefully) couldn’t directly see me. “Like, besides the fact that that’s _really_ weird to just out and say, the entire gig your apprentices had was a long series of attached strings.”

_“… Ugh, you know what? I can’t argue with that. And I’m not gonna say this timeline isn’t going to go on without ‘ya, because it is, but you won’t really remember it as more than a dream, so no worries!”_

“I would absolutely still worry,” I retorted, trying to be as pointed as possible, because I still absolutely did not trust this guy at all, “because that’s how I am, which you should know, since you apparently know me. Speaking of which, what other important details are you leaving out?”

_“Well, once you figure out how to get this version of me back, I’ll be able to send you back to_ **_your_ ** _universe with all the time dilation stuff in effect AND my number, probably should mention that part — you’ve been around this block enough times to expect that perk, though, haven’t ya?”_

“Every omnipotent asshole is different,” I huffed.

_“Sheesh, don’t I know it — I sure hope you never meet my colleagues, kiddo — but, uh, I think this is getting a little more meta than it needs to be. Any further questions before I let you work your magic? You’ll have my number and all, but I can’t promise much after this.”_

“Right,” I sighed. “Well, there is one thing, uh… when am I right now?”

 _“Oh, c’mon, surely you should be able to figure THAT out just by looking!”_ God, I could **hear** the gesticulations. _“If that’s all, I’m gonna leave you to it, alright? Wait, what’s the line, I had a_ ** _line…”_**

My eyes narrowed and I started to grimace a bit. “Uh, first of all, your view on what people should be able to figure out on their own is more than little skewed, but also, uh—”

 _“Aha!”_ He cut in, making me jump. When he continued, his tone was a bit deeper, and slower. _“It is time. This is your story.”_

I blinked. “… The contrast kind of kills it, not gonna lie,” I said, though I did of course have a lot of attachment to both of those phrases, especially since one of them was coming out of a phone… but nah, the fact that it was this guy saying it really didn’t help the impact come across.

 _“Everyone’s a critic…”_ the Master grumbled, and I couldn’t help but snort a bit with laughter. _“Alright, that’s it, our time’s up. May your heart be your guiding key, there, is that better? Sheesh…”_

The line cut off, and my small laughter continued for a little bit. At the very least, it _had_ helped me feel less terrified — at least enough that I could take stock of my actual situation.

I was in Kingdom Hearts, which was either awesome or terrifying depending on what was what and how seriously we were taking certain aspects. Was I still my own age aka four to five years older than the main cast? My clothes had changed, and SI Magic always worked differently depending on what series and what premise was going on…

I took a deep breath, trying to focus on what to do next. Defending myself would be the most important, and this seemed to be a fairly calm area to figure out how it worked and it’d be a good way to let off steam, but then again I needed to find out where I was on the timeline, and what if someone found me doing crazy dances or hand gestures because I got bored, and —

_Inhale. Exhale._

_‘Alright, why not do both,’_ I said to myself. _‘Let’s try to figure out this hammerspace thing that everyone in this universe seems to have access to even if they aren’t specifically heart-based weapons, and we can do that while exploring a little bit.’_

And so I turned around, seeing mostly palm trees… separated out just well enough to be a series of jumping platforms. To my left were a finished raft, a zipline with a tower connected to it, and some various climbable ledges and rocks. The back side of the island, then, and judging by the relative cleanliness of the raft, the very beginning of Kingdom Hearts I. There wasn’t anywhere to get a good look at my face, but my clothes were now a very Nomura-ized version of something I’d wear on a typical day, with a large poofy-collared sweater, a long blouse underneath it and over some jeans that were thankfully nice and flared and not leather, fingerless gloves, and with the aforementioned large pockets, plus what felt like tennis shoes but with buckles for some reason. My hair was still the same short length, though I could feel it was a bit more anime, and I had a hairband on. All workable, nothing to complain about.

I stretched out my hand, trying to figure out how the whole weapon thing worked. Of course, it didn’t help that I didn’t even know what weapon I’d have. I tried to let the residual adrenaline still pumping through my veins — I said I was calmer, not calm — concentrate into my gestures, figuring that was what most of the stuff meant when it said “channel your energy”, to see if that did anything, but instead of a weapon, _tiny_ sparks flew out around my hands, though I didn’t notice them at first — instead of paying attention to that, my mind had turned to climbing the waist-high outcroppings in front of me, despite my less than fit nature and less than ideal agility stat.

I did a sort of side-pout, and decided to just try to jump at it and slide myself onto it. As I backed up and went to go in for the jogging hop, I realized that it actually felt completely different just to _move_.

… Was I suddenly and magically fit? Or was this just a universe with less reliance on stuff like that in the first place? There was an argument to be made that the worlds were small and had less gravity, but that line of thought was pretty weird and it was probably better not to touch it. Fall damage was never a thing in the Kingdom Hearts Universe in general, but Disney was on the box, so maybe the logic was just… cartoon logic?

Whatever that even meant, of course.

Whatever! Whatever! Make the jump, gosh darn it!

Jumping felt _totally_ different. Falling didn’t feel awful and the air seemed to be, like, happy to see me? Or something, but the wind blew around me in a way that felt warm and welcoming. There could be a symbolic reason, what with all the air-based names, but who knew for sure.

Of course my acrophobia wouldn’t be beaten back that easily, but at least it wouldn’t be a terrible experience, and I seemed to have just as much jumping capability as pre-High-Jump Sora and Riku.

I always appreciated a bit of non-realism in more magic-based stories.

I jumped the small rocky cliff without too much issue, then decided to go ahead and chance the jumps across the wooden platforms, being sure to jump _over_ the trick board. Falling didn’t feel awful but it still didn’t feel _good_.

Proud of myself for successful jumping, I decided to give the energy channeling thing another shot. This time I recognized the elemental magic as it manifested bit by bit, subtly feeling the change from fire to lightning, though ice was a bit of a stretch. Fire and lightning were both excitement and energy, which I already had thanks to the adrenaline, but ice might’ve been a bit harder because it was associated with other things?

Either way, I only felt bits of their power with my efforts, which was exciting and disappointing in equal measure. I wondered if it was pretty good for a total novice, but that thought was unlikely and didn’t really appease my disappointment much. I sighed and walked towards the door to the other side of the island, muttering to myself.

“I bet it would be easier if I had some kind of weapon to focus it through or something…” I trailed off, suddenly realizing I was holding something. I flung my hand up into my field of vision to find a very simple, thin stick of what felt, at least, like wood, though it was dark blue in color, with a Mickey Mouse head on one end. Not quite a miniature version of the Dream Staff, but pretty close, anyway… I supposed I had my weapon.

“… A wand?” I muttered in slightly biting disbelief. “Seriously?”

I mean, wands were pretty versatile, but it meant that I _for sure_ wouldn’t be able to get in any up close fights, unless I wanted to go the knitting needles route, and even then, this wand had two blunt ends, so it wouldn’t be stabbing anyone anytime soon.

Still, it was a weapon. And it just kind of appeared when I needed a focus, so maybe that was the key? Just thinking about fighting?

The sun suddenly came through a part in the clouds and my eyes widened as I remembered how little time I actually had, and also how little of a plan I had.

If this was pre-KH1 Destiny Islands, then it’d be nice to throw Xehanort’s plans into the toilet immediately by keeping the three kids together, but that would cause an incredibly large chain reaction… Roxas… Namine…

… Xion…

I sighed. The Destiny Trio were what was right in front of me. They mattered more right now that the as-of-yet hypothetical existence of Namine and Roxas (or whatever effect it would or wouldn’t have on Xion, who was kind of a weird situation anyway), and as much as I loved character growth, I wasn’t about to put these kids into terrible situations if I _could_ avoid it; they deserved better. They deserved to stay together — they deserved to be able to support each other from the start.

I pushed the wooden door open and started down the beach, only to almost get landed on as I walked under a bridge a certain silver haired teenager had just jumped off of.

… I was taller than him, which surprised me but let me infer that I was, in fact, still a twenty-two year old woman, and as he turned towards me due to my involuntary noise of surprise, he seemed just as surprised to see me.

Or at least, that’s what the battle stance indicated.

“Who are you?” He said accusingly, which I suppose he had every right to do, even if I didn’t like it.

I wasn’t really sure how to answer. It wasn’t like they’d believe me if I just blurted out the truth, and it was such a long story that however I told him it wouldn’t be right now while he was ready to hit me. Even if it was just a wooden sword and not the Keyblade he’d eventually wield, I wasn’t particularly fond of pain in general, and wood had a certain… well, anyway, I needed to explain myself, and quickly, because now Sora and Kairi were on my other side, and probably also unhappy, and shit I was starting to totally freak out again, shit, what do I say—

“It’s a really long story and I’m really sorry I surprised you and please hear me out, okay? I’m not looking to cause trouble or hurt anyone I promise.”

My nervousness appeared to come through, because Riku blinked and looked confused.

“Riku, don’t you think you’re overreacting?” Kairi said. “You don’t have to brandish a sword at anything that surprises you.”

“Yeah, Riku, you’ve been pretty jumpy recently.” Sora said, and I could almost picture him putting his hands behind his head. My heart rate started to lower back to a regular pace, and I turned to see that I had guessed his actions correctly. “I haven’t ever seen you before, though. What’s your name?”

I found myself smiling, because Sora was infectious — it was also just nice to see him safe, after what happened at the end of KH3. I hadn’t finished it too long ago, before being shipped off, but it had really started to sink in… man, I really _had_ wanted something like this, the stupid Master of Masters was absolutely right. “My name’s Amanda, but I go by Amy sometimes,” I said. “Whichever you like best is fine!”

“Neat!” He grinned wide. “I’m Sora. The one who threatened you is Riku, and that’s Kairi.”

“What did you mean by ‘it’s a long story’?” Riku said, still looking confused.

I hadn’t really been thinking when I said that, but I had been planning on explaining sooner rather than later anyway — playing the field and choosing what knowledge to share went wrong more often than not in these stories and I was bad at it anyway, so I may as well just tell my story and try to convince them it was true — these kids deserved the truth, anyway. “Well, like I said, it’s a long story… But it’s easiest to start off with the part where I’m… from another world.”

All three of the kids opened their eyes wide in surprise.

Riku spoke first, with an exceptionally ineloquent “Seriously?” that made me laugh in spite of how that probably made me seem.

“I promise!” I said before they could take it the wrong way or anything. “But like I said, it’s a super long story, and the sun is setting and I don’t really have anyplace to stay, so if there’s a place where I could tell you this long story and we could also be near beds…”

“My mom probably won’t mind if you stay with me,” Kairi said. “We’ve got a bigger house than Sora or Riku, so it’ll probably be easiest.”

This world really must have been peaceful if someone would just give up a room in their house to an adult stranger. I supposed maybe I seemed younger than I was sometimes, though; that happens when you forget you’re 20 and use mannerisms of anime high schoolers.

I offered to help row back to the main island, but Kairi outright refused and insisted I sit with her to give her more exercise. I sometimes forgot how competitive she could be… man, now I was thinking about the place the source material had left off again. I shook my head; I couldn’t let myself get caught up in that kind of thinking right now.

Unfortunately, the boat ride was a bit long, and I’ve always had an unfortunate need to fill silence. I ran through things to say in my head on a loop before deciding on, “Hey, I saw that raft on the back side of the island. Did you guys make that?”

I knew the answer, of course, unless I had been shipped off to a _very_ alternate timeline, but it was probably less suspicious than outright asking whether they had seen a creepy hooded dude that day because, hey, if you did, your home is about to go kaput and there’s nothing you can do about it!

… Anyway, hopefully I could figure out how much time I had to explain, that’s what I was trying to do here.

There was a large amount of pride in the three voices that confirmed their involvement in the raft, all in different manners of speaking.

“But these boats are pretty well made. Why would you need a raft?”

The kids blinked a couple of times and looked at each other, their paddling falling out of its practiced rhythm slightly.

They recovered quickly, though.

“It’s to travel further than we can in these boats — and it’s something we have to do on our own,” Riku said. “I don’t know if it makes sense or not, but…”

“Plus it’ll help us stick together easier, probably!” Sora chimed in.

“We did the research and made sure it was well made, we know what we’re doing,” Kairi said with conviction. “I made sure to make a list of provisions based on their nutritional value and everything! We’re going to gather them tomorrow.”

That statement’s importance didn’t hit me right away, but when it did, I had to hide my sigh of relief. If everything was as it should’ve been, I had a full day to create and execute a plan based on how my story went over, which was… not a lot, but it was better than nothing; I could work with it for sure.

“It might be because I don’t have context, but… provisions implies a long trip, yeah?” I closed my eyes. “I’ve admittedly never followed through with any plans as large-scale as this before, but I dunno, a raft doesn’t seem like the best way of going about it. I guess it could all work out, there have been flimsier vessels, but…”

“Our parents think we’ll give up before we set off,” Riku said, his gaze fixed firmly forward. “They think we’ll burn ourselves out or something, I guess. But we won’t.”

“We promised!” Sora blurted, sounding almost offended — as though the idea of something getting in the way of a promise was unheard of.

“To go as far as we can… on our own,” Riku continued. “That’s our goal. Or, it’s mine, at least.” Humor crept into his voice. “These guys would probably rather nap on the beach, I bet.”

“It was one time!” Sora yelled. “One time! It was so not a habit that it even made me have a weird dream, okay, so don’t you dare!”

I laughed a bit, and Kairi did too.

“Man, I hate it when I get weird dreams,” I said. “You wake up and you think it was totally realistic until you start thinking about it for five seconds, and then you just have to question what the heck your brain was doing.”

I mentally noted that swearing was something I had to strain to even think about. Disney, I swear.

“My dreams aren’t usually like that,” Kairi said, her voice taking on a hint of a sigh, “not that I remember much about them. Just that they’re important and something I should know, so they can’t have been weird unrealistic ones, right?”

“Who knows,” I said. “If you don’t write them down, most dreams fade away from your memory pretty quickly, just because of what they are and how the brain works. Or at least how we understand the brain’s workings on my world, anyway.”

“Huh,” Sora made a face that indicated curiosity. “What’s your world like?”

I thought about what was safe to tell him before the full story, so that they’d believe me when I told them where I came from. “Well, it’s super big, for one thing. I feel like physics doesn’t even work the same here, too, I don’t know if those two things have anything to do with each other. No idea how technologically advanced your world is compared to mine, though, since all I’ve seen of it is a deserted island full of kids.”

My slightly dry tone made them laugh, which was good. I always tried to entertain.

“Hey, hey,” Sora said through his laughter. “Riku’s not a kid, he’s going to be in _high school_ next year.”

 _“Ugh,”_ Riku groaned, throwing his head back a bit. “Don’t remind me. Who _knows_ what kind of trouble you two’ll get into without me there to keep an eye on you.”

“Excuse me?” Kairi raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, what’s that supposed to mean?” Sora pouted.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Riku taunted, pushing a little harder on his oars to gain a bit of distance on the others. This caused them, naturally, to kick up a fuss and paddle harder too, which pretty effectively killed the conversation beyond some further verbal jabs along the way.

It was fun, honestly — nice to see them just being kids, given al the stuff that the universe was about to put them through. The silence gave me a bit of time to work on exactly how I was going to explain my situation. I was definitely a little worried about how they’d take it, but…

I nodded to myself. I’d make it work. Compared to the usual events of this universe, my situation wasn’t honestly _that_ weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What explanation will Amy offer her new acquaintances? How will she endeavor to keep all of them safe from the coming storm?
> 
> Find out next time, in Realize This Wish!


	2. Wish Number 2: Make a Decent First Impression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not totally confident in this one? I'll be real with you, the first chapter was something I worked on on and off over the course of like a year while focusing on other projects, so it was way more heavily edited, and I'm not sure the tone of this one matches up and I have no idea if it all flows the way I'd like it to... but it's done, and my betas and editor have had their says, so here it goes. Here's hoping you guys like it! I'm hard at work on all my other stories, too, of course, and once finals are over I'll have way more time to work on them, so that'll be fun!

Kairi led the way to her house, the boys next to me as we walked behind her. They made a few comments about things I didn’t really have any place butting in on — simple stuff like what they were going to eat for lunch tomorrow and complaints about homework. I felt out of place, a little, and when that combined with the very simple reminder that these were _kids_ with _lives_ it was just a whole conga line of upsetness, but I wasn’t about to _not_ tell them what I knew; they were going to get caught up in the end of the world no matter what, and what I had to say could only help them.

Hopefully.

The real question, I reminded myself, because going down a line of “hopefully-probably-maybe” was entirely unhelpful, was _how_ I was going to get my points across, and how I was going to keep them together. What would be the easiest angle to start with? Thinking about it, it really _wasn’t_ that strange, my situation, at least up until the part where I knew who they were…

“Okay, we’re here!” Kairi said, and I started a bit, blinking rapidly as the house she’d stopped in front of came into focus. “You guys want dinner?”

“I could eat,” Riku said blithely, though he was mostly drowned out by a big ol’ whoop Sora let out.

“Wouldn’t your parents want to know about that?” I asked, tilting my head a little bit.

“My mom’ll call them,” Kairi replied, turning to open the door. “We eat at each other’s houses a lot, you know?”

She said it kind of like it was obvious, which, if I’m honest, stung a little, but that was probably just my own experiences. Like, if _my_ parents had three extra guests sprung on them for dinner or were called by a friend’s parents about where I was, I would’ve been in a world of trouble. Maybe it’s different when you live within walking distance or something, I definitely wouldn’t know… I decided to put on a smile as I shook my head a bit. “Whatever you say, then.”

Kairi called out a greeting through the house as we all entered.

“Mom! I’m home! And Sora and Riku are here!”

“Welcome back, dear!” came a shout from somewhere in the back of the house. “I’ll be out in a minute, I’ve been doing some paperwork!”

“I know how it is, mom!” Kairi called back, starting to kick off her shoes. The boys followed suit, and I sat down and tried as hard as I could to not make it obvious I’d never worn these shoes before. That would just make things weird in ways they didn’t need to be. Thankfully, none of the kids stared or said anything as I took them off, so I assumed I succeeded.

As I stood, Kairi beckoned the lot of us — or probably just me, given that the boys seemed pretty familiar with the place — further into the house. She led us into the kitchen, a pretty simple setup with the oven under a pretty standard stovetop; the microwave was on the shelf near the fridge, which was also a pretty basic setup with no ice-maker and what was probably the freezer as a small door at the top. The pantry stood out for looking pretty big by comparison, and Kairi immediately dove into it while the boys and I milled around.

“I dunno if mom already had plans for dinner,” she said, raising her voice maybe a little more than she needed to to be heard from inside the pantry, “but there’s stuff for Riku’s usual in here, I think.”

“Oh, what, we get to come to your house so I can cook?” Riku leaned against a counter and crossed his arms, tone somewhere between actually put-off and amused.

“What, would you rather I did it?” Kairi leaned back to give Riku a few wide-eyed eyelash flutters, eyebrows raised — the picture of confused innocence, if not for the fact that Kairi was failing miserably at hiding the smirk on her face.

Riku’s head reared back as he made eye contact and he gave a full-body shudder. “Yeah, alright, fine, I’ll handle it.”

Kairi gave a big grin and a cheeky giggle, and the fact that she was supporting herself with the doorframe of the pantry was probably the only reason she wasn’t flashing a ‘V” sign. Sora laughed in response to Kairi’s triumph, and Riku turned his head to give him a put-out look.

“Sheesh, first the raft and now this,” he sighed dramatically. “What would you two do without me?”

… That was a joke, I reminded myself as my gut twisted. I didn’t need to think about all the character implications and get all wound up in that _one statement_ right now; I still didn’t even know these kids yet. I was _not going to therapy at kids I didn’t actually know,_ Arceus, _why_ was I like this?

“I hope you like curry,” Riku said as he walked past me towards the pantry. I blinked a few times to refocus as I processed the statement.

I tilted my head. “It uh… kinda varies? My food preferences are weird in general, though. I’ll try not to be rude,” I tried to laugh, though I actually was kind of worried. I never _meant_ to insult people’s cooking, but my stomach and taste buds were more than a little sensitive, and trying to force food down never went well for anyone. Just what I needed, an extra thing to worry about on top of the actually major issues I was about to drop on these kids…

… Crap, I was starting to freak out again. I took a deep breath, letting my lungs stretch out as much as possible, and tried to push the bad thoughts out of my brain. There was time for all that after food.

“Oh? Who’s this?”

II jumped — so much for calming down, I guess. I turned to see someone entirely unfamiliar to me, presumably Kairi’s mother who’d yelled across the house earlier.

She was a somewhat heavy-set woman with a warm sort of aura about her, even despite the rugged-seeming dark red vest and khaki cargo pants. Her hair and eyes were both dark brown, and her skin was some variety of olive-colored — not that I was really an expert in how skin color was classified and described; thinking about it always kind of felt awkward to me, whatever that said about me. She wore her hair in a high ponytail, and from what I could see it was long enough to still almost reach her lower back. She had earrings made of a single Thalassa shell each, with a necklace to match, and her vest had a star on the left side of the chest area.

“Oh, hi mom!” Kairi said, hopping over to hug her mom. “This is Amy, she said she didn’t have anywhere to go so I told her it was okay if she stayed here. Is that alright?”

“Nowhere to go?” Kairi’s mother’s eyes narrowed a bit, her face concerned — for obvious reasons, naturally. “Are you alright, dear?”

“Uh…” Crap, _crap,_ I was still kind of freaking out so I had no idea what to _say!_ “It, uh… it’s a long story?”

Great, the same vague thing I’d said to the kids. Right now was the time to _actually elaborate,_ Amanda!

I took another deep breath, though the release of breath this time was a bit more forceful than I meant it to be — it kind of helped, though, at least a little.

“Okay, uh…” I looked around. “Is there some place we could sit down? Like I said, it’s… a _long_ story.”

Kairi’s mom tilted her head a bit, considering me, then smiled. “Follow me, dear.”

She started to walk, and the kids shared a hesitant glance with each other.

“You guys can come too,” I said. “I said I’d tell you guys what I was doing here, it’s fine.”

They all blinked, but they followed when I started walking after Kairi’s mother. She led me to a living room with a TV (and some game consoles, some bizarre part of my brain noted), a big chair, and two couches, one longer than the other. She sat in the chair, and the kids made a beeline for the larger couch, so I sat on the smaller one.

I leaned forward, looking at my hands as I tried to figure out where to start.

“Alright, so…” Another deep breath. I was going to wind up babbling nonsense if I wasn’t careful. “… I’m from another world. That much I told you kids already.”

There was a sharp intake of breath — presumably from Kairi’s mom, though I was still looking at my hands, so I didn’t know for sure.

“As for how I got here…” _Arceus_ , how was I supposed to _word_ this… “I got sent here, by a force I don’t really understand.” That was as good of an explanation for the Master of Masters as any, I supposed, at least for now. “My home world is impossibly far away — separated by more than space, honestly.”

I looked up at where Kairi’s mom was sitting. “This all probably sounds crazy, and it’s only going to get crazier. I don’t know how to lead into this, so… basically, I have access to a lot of information about this world and a lot of other ones, as well as some knowledge of the future, and this world… is going to be destroyed, soon.”

Kairi’s mom’s expression was… oddly unreadable, though I wasn’t an expert at facial reading anyway. I expected her to be more outright upset, but there was a lot more to her expression that just that — though it definitely was there.

I didn’t even look at the kids. Maybe I should’ve, but in this tense situation I was more focused on the woman who I’d never known anything about before now.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” I said, voice as serious as I could make it, “but there’s a powerful force of darkness eating away at this world’s heart even as we speak. I obviously can’t say for sure, because my knowledge isn’t necessarily exact… but the version of events I’ve seen says that this world will fall in around 24 hours.”

I sighed. “I don’t _really_ know why I’m here, but given the fact that I _am_ and the knowledge I have, I want to change things if I can — the only problem is, I don’t have the power to do anything on my own. All I have is the knowledge of who _does_ have the power to potentially stop this world’s destruction.”

Kairi’s mother’s expression hadn’t shifted. I closed my eyes, and took another deep breath, then looked over at the kids on the couch.

“As crazy as it might sound,” I said, now speaking to them, “the three of you hold the… well, the _key_ to saving this world, as long as my knowledge holds. The power is dormant right now, but —”

“Now, hold on,” Kairi’s mother interrupted me, voice stern, and I froze. I turned my head back around to meet her gaze, terror flooding through me — I must have sounded absolutely out of my mind, and like a child kidnapper at that! Why did I have to be dropped off _here_ in the timeline if all I was going to do was ruin everything!?

She seemed to read the terror in my body language, because she paused, giving a small sigh. “I know what ‘power’ you’re talking about.”

I straightened, blinking a few times. She did?

“I’m the mayor,” she said, and there was a certain gravitas to the word I hadn’t expected from what was, in my world, a relatively mundane political position, “and my council has more than a few magically inclined individuals. I know about the Source of Power, and I know the stories about the keys that can protect or destroy only at the discretion of the wielder.”

She crossed her arms. “You say that you know the future? That these _children_ are connected to the keys and the Source of Power? And you say our world is being eaten away by darkness, with you as a convenient savior at the eleventh hour?”

I hunched in on myself, self-conscious and anxious. “The force that sent me here is fickle, and I can’t claim to understand it; it picked a point to dump me, knowing about all of the things I know, and left me to my own devices. I understand if you don’t believe me, but…”

I trailed off. I hadn’t been sure if I was even going to _mention_ the story aspect of all this, and now definitely seemed like an inopportune time to bring it up… but I also had no idea what to say to convince her of _anything_. These kinds of situations were the absolute worst!

“… what I’ve seen…” I started, feeling the urge to say _something_ too strongly to keep myself quiet for long, but trailing off and reconsidering a bit, “… you’re not wrong that it seems out of nowhere, I don’t blame you for expecting a scam — I really don’t trust the force that sent me here myself! But I…”

I took a deep breath and, with great effort, met her eyes. “I really want to help stop the destruction that’s coming — and it _is_ coming, whether you believe me or not.”

There was a stretch of silence. I forced all the tension in my body to help me stay focused on maintaining eye contact, even as it became nearly unbearable, and then, finally, she lowered her head, sighing just a bit, and closed her eyes.

“I’m going to talk to the council about this,” she said. “I’m going to trust you to stay here, in the house — don’t make me regret that choice. Kairi, Riku, Sora, call me if _anything_ happens — but go ahead and make food if you get hungry; I’m not sure how long this will take.”

The kids nodded quietly, concerned expressions on their faces, and Kairi’s mother nodded a bit to herself in response before turning back to me.

“You said your name was…?”

I jumped, just a bit, but I couldn’t let myself get tripped up too much if I wanted things to go _some_ kind of well here. “Amanda, ma’am, or Amy for short.”

It might have just been me, but I thought I saw her face soften, just a bit.

“My name is Anshou,” she replied. “Stay out of trouble until I get back.”

* * *

It was quiet while Riku made his curry. I stayed in the living room for most of the time it took, alternating between staring at the ceiling, contemplating my life choices, and absently paging through various websites on my phone. Nice of the Grand and Powerful Master to at least give me magical internet access if he was going to ship me off to the single and only part of the timeline where my presence would be questioned. 

I’d really thought, y’know? I’d genuinely thought that I could explain the situation to the kids without any problems. When you got right down to it, my presence was _not_ the weirdest thing that could happen in this particular universe, but since I was at the _beginning_ , before any of the kids and _certainly_ their parents had any idea how much nonsense this universe was capable of, the idea of an dimensional interloper with knowledge beyond what made sense was totally going to get me in trouble with them.

It _would_ be the version of the story _I_ was involved in that actually had the kids’ parents learn what was going on. The one part of the story I might have actually sometimes had complaints about…

… but it did me no good to stew in those feelings. If the parents _knew,_ then if I managed to not get immediately booted off the world, that actually opened up a lot of options. Whether I could capitalize on any of them would depend entirely on my ability to _not freak out._

After a little while of attempting to calm myself with only some degree of success, I saw Kairi poke her head through the entryway to the living room out of the corner of my eye. I looked over at her, and she jumped a bit, her eyes darting around; I had no idea what to say myself, so I kind of wound up looking around really quickly too before offering a lame, “Uh… hi?”

Kairi looked around a bit more before saying, “… I’m no good at cooking, so, uh…”

… I think I had figured that out from the earlier conversation? That was a thing the banter had implied, right? Yeah, that was a thing. Totally, I knew that. And of course it made sense for her to get bored, and therefore to want to talk to me, because I was something weird about her situation. That was totally a thing that I understood.

Did I have any idea what to do with that information? No, no I did not! Like, what if Anshou walked in right as I was talking to her, and I happened to be saying something that could potentially be suspicious, that would be just about the worst thing to ever happen to me ever, of all time. So.

I didn’t say anything for a little while, but the silence was _absolutely_ torturous, so it only took me about a minute to put my phone away in one of the many pockets provided for me with my new outfit (thank you, Master of Masters, you did at least one thing right by me) and turn towards the door, resting an arm on the back of the couch.

“So, uh…” Conversation topic, conversation topic, c’mon pick something you can _do this_ , “... what all do you guys do around here when you’re not off on a deserted island?” I asked, my head tilting without me really meaning it to; hopefully it looked natural?

My eyes flicked around just a bit even as I attempted to maintain eye contact; the TV was kind of ancient by my world’s standards — who knew what this world’s term for it was, but it looked like an old CRT. They probably didn’t have anything great on television if the kids spent all their time on a desert island every day even at age 14, in my opinion, but then I was always a little more media-focused than other people my age, or so my parents had me believe.

“Well…” Kairi put a hand to her chin. “Sora and Riku and everyone do their sparring a lot, even when we aren’t on the island. I play too, sometimes, but…”

She trailed off, crossing her arms and walking over to the back of the couch, leaning on it a bit before continuing. “Sora and Riku go easy on me. They don’t mean to, I don’t think, but they do. And I don’t really know Tidus or Wakka very well, and I mean I do play with Selphie sometimes, but she’s not really as into it as the boys are, and anyway if you aren’t Sora and Riku fighting the same person over and over again is kind of boring anyway.”

Kairi was kind of pouting by the end, and I found myself frowning in sympathy -- or empathy? I always got the two mixed up, but point is I felt bad because that sucked. The idea that her two best friends didn’t take her seriously? That would bug anyone, even if the best friends in question really didn’t mean to.

“Hm…” I wondered if I was in a position to offer advice. I wanted to — something had to be done, anyway, and if I could help, I should, right? That’s how helping worked?

… I still struggled with basic restraint even twenty-three years into life, yes, shut up.

In this case, though, I was pretty unqualified to offer advice; social skills were _not_ my forte, let’s leave it at that. My first instinct was to tell Kairi to just tell Sora and Riku what she thought they were doing and ask them to figure out a way to stop, and the chances of _that_ working were _very_ low, given what age these kids were.

The next option to pop into my head arguably had more potential but it also vaguely supported some negative relationship and gender stereotypes if I thought about it a certain way? Then again that could be _over_ -thinking it, Arceus knew _that_ was a possibility…

“Well, I’m not an expert,” I decided to lead with, attempting to absolve me of some of the responsibility and any perceivable arrogance or expectation of my ideas being better than anyone else’s, or basically to make it seem like I was just offering one potential solution out of many with no expectation that it was definitely the right one or anything (have I mentioned I was still kind of freaking out? because I was still kind of freaking out), “but maybe you just have to _make_ them take you seriously? Get so good they can’t hold back, subconsciously or not?”

I tried to keep my posture casual to hold in all the racing thoughts and worry about whether that idea was any good, crossing my arms behind my head as I leaned back to make as much eye contact with Kairi as I could. Her eyes were narrowed thoughtfully, and after looking at me for a bit, her gaze wandered to the side.

“Like I said, I’m not an expert,” I reiterated, trying as hard as I could not to sound bossy — sheesh, what if I seemed like some random adult thinking they’re better than any kid in their vicinity? That would _suck!_ “It might just be easiest to just sit them down and talk to them about it, or something. You know yourself and your friends better than I do.”

I wasn’t totally happy about how I handled that, but Kairi was thoughtful rather than, like, angry, so that was a plus, and I always had time to make up for any mistakes later.

Hopefully. If this went well, anyway.

It was then that I noticed that Sora was now poking his head through the entryway and staring kind of blatantly. I made eye contact, and he jumped, starting to pull back into the kitchen, but Kairi (thankfully not _too_ caught up in her thoughts about my advice) followed my gaze and ran over to grab him before he could retreat completely.

“So,” she said, turning towards me even as she pulled Sora into the room, “I told you about us, but what stuff do you do when _you’re_ not being supposedly pulled through space by powers beyond your understanding?”

Sora’s head spun around to look at me, in a way that gave me a twinge of sympathetic pain. His curiosity, along with Kairi’s, was honestly a little daunting, given how frazzled I currently was and how worried I was about Anshou and her council absolutely eviscerating me if I did anything even remotely threatening around the kids, but if I didn’t engage that would be worse, right? Right.

“Uh, sheesh…” I began, pushing my hair back absently. “Not sure where to begin, but… I guess mostly I write stories and play games? Nothing special, really.”

“You write stories?” Kairi leaned forward over the back of the couch again, mostly casually, but her eyes were sparkling just a bit; she’d released Sora by this point, and he was standing a bit further towards the wall.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, bubbling tension easing just a bit; my stories were something I could _easily_ fill time talking about without having to worry about potentially sounding suspicious, so the fact that she was interested was a huge relief. “I like reading too, of course.”

“What kinds of stories do you write?” Kairi asked, leaning forward even more.

Hm, how to describe fanfiction to a 14-year-old from a fictional universe where magic was at least a known thing…

“Well, I guess I like action?” I decided to go with. “Big fights and high stakes are always fun… but I tend to focus on character interaction over more in-depth worldbuilding, so I like the quiet moments a lot too. I guess that’s more what I like to read, but it kind of overlaps, you know?”

Kairi nodded a few times, then continued looking at me expectantly. What else could I say without getting into weird territory… maybe this was kind of stressful after all, but it was still something I really liked, so I didn’t really notice, however much sense that makes.

“A good way of describing what I like to write — and a lot of what I like to read, honestly — is taking an idea that seems like it shouldn’t work and then making it work,” I said, nodding a bit to myself. “Going into a lot of untapped possibilities that no one would’ve expected is always fun, too, of course, though that’s hard to do without a bunch of research, which I’m not always good at.”

I injected a bit of humor into my voice at the end, trying to keep the conversation energy up despite not really knowing where to go from there. Thankfully, Kairi was still very much invested in this line of questioning.

“So what are you working on right now?” she said, and I got the feeling she wanted details — possibly that she wanted details the whole time, whoops. Which of my stories could I describe without going into how much I was trying to change something that already existed…?

… Ah, that one might work.

“Well, alright, one of my current projects is about a group of people who lived in a bunch of disparate worlds, and died tragically,” I began. “They all get reincarnated on the same world, a world of constant tension between these countries of magical ninja warriors, filled with people who want to use others and the systems people live under for personal gain.”

I sat back into the cushions of the couch, looking forward. “These are, fittingly, all the kinds of things that these people fought before their deaths, and the things that led them to their demise in the first place. They have to overcome all this hardship all over again, realize their ultimate strengths, and come together to change the world for the better, along with tons of other people who want the same thing. They grow and learn along the way, and teach others the lessons they had to learn in their past lives, and maybe a few of the ones they didn’t quite get around to.”

I turned my head back towards Kairi, who was staring with her eyes possibly wider than before. Sora had joined her in leaning forward over the couch, and he was pretty enthralled too, which was honestly empowering as heck. I gave a bit of a toothy grin and added a final statement.

“There are also lots of animal companions. I’m a big fan of those, personally.”

“What kinds of animals?” Sora said, returning my grin with his own excited smile.

“The main character has snakes,” I said proudly, grin growing wider, “and her teammates have crows and cats. All the characters have a specific kind of animal they can summon, though, so there are a whole lot of them.”

_“Cool!”_ Sora said, an energy level in his voice that was genuinely adorable.

“Sora, you barely even read comic books,” Kairi teased, shoving him just a bit. “Don’t act like you’d actually be able to get past the first chapter of it.”

“Wh- _hey,_ come on!”

I felt my gut tighten again — _Arceus_ but I wish I understood what healthy teasing looked like. I crossed my arms and tried to think if there was a way I could comment on it at all without seeming out of place, but I was interrupted before I really got the chance.

By the sound of the front door opening.

“Kids, I’m back!” Anshou said, her voice sounding fairly normal which somehow made me _more nervous._ “I brought the council, did you guys get food yet?”

Kairi went over to stick her head through the entrance to the kitchen and called out to Riku, “How close to done are you?”

“It still needs to simmer for a bit, and I definitely didn’t make enough for the whole council,” Riku replied, just a bit shortly.

“Don’t worry, son!” I froze, not recognizing this voice. It was a man’s voice, and just a bit gruff, but kind of friendly, too — or maybe I was just being desperately optimistic, because I had no _idea_ what kind of people were about to interrogate me. “We can fend for ourselves!”

… Wait, son? Was that, like, the generic term of acknowledgement used by adults to address male people that were younger than them, or —

“Sure thing, dad,” Riku shot back, with an edge of sarcasm — I couldn’t see him, since he was in the kitchen, but I could feel the eyeroll that had to accompany his statement.

Huh. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that one of Riku’s parents would be in the council of important people on the islands, but here I was, definitely surprised.

Riku’s apparent dad responded to his apparent son’s sarcasm with a hearty laugh, which was reassuring; I was stressed enough about potentially getting offed without also having to deal with any strained family relationships tonight, honestly.

“It _is_ a shame we have to miss your food, though, dear,” said another unfamiliar voice, this one more feminine. His mom? God, the fact that they had parents _at all_ was still a little weird, was the thing…

“Kairi, honey,” okay, that was Anshou, at least I recognized that, “Is our guest still in the living room?”

“Yeah, mom!” Kairi called back. “Nothing happened, and Amy’s actually really cool!”

… That was also really freaking empowering. When you’re freaking out, any praise can mean a lot, I suppose.

“Is that so?” Anshou said, suddenly much closer than she just had been. She walked into the living room, and thankfully her expression was mostly welcoming — had I been blowing her level of concern out of proportion this whole time? _Arceus_ I was confused.

Only one person walked into the room with her — probably a good thing, given that the living room wasn’t super huge. It was a tall man, with a serious expression, who looked a bit older than Anshou, possibly? There was a scar across one of his eyes, and his hair — was it a ponytail? He was wearing a red coat with a high collar so I couldn’t really tell but it _looked_ kind of that way— was definitely greying in places. His coat was sort of tied together by a belt around his waist, and one of his arms was sort of slung in the front of his coat, out of his sleeve.

If this description is ringing a bell to any of you, let me tell you, _actually seeing him_ was like a bolt of electricity straight from Thundurus himself, because _not only_ did I recognize this man, I was _fairly certain_ he was not supposed to be here, and was in fact supposed to show up much later down the line as a _ghost of a younger version of himself._

So, uh, yeah. Auron, yes that Auron, the one you’re thinking of who originated in Final Fantasy X and had a brief role in KH2 and _should not be here_ , was part of Anshou’s council.

And that’s just where it _started_ getting weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What the heck is this guy doing here? Who else is going to come out of the woodwork that Amy recognizes? What effect will all of these new players have on the game at hand?
> 
> Find out next time in Realize This Wish!


End file.
